Many have rightfully criticized McCain’s June 3rd speech as stiff and awkward. In response, the McCain campaign has hired former Obama speech consultant Yuri Lee Sedthet. The results have been immediate and compelling:

• While visiting the destroyed Back To the Future set at Universal Studios in California, McCain asked “so does the time machine still work?“
• Speaking to a group of fellow veterans, McCain noted, “Many soldiers never came back, and I see some of those men here today.”
• When asked why he felt Californians would not vote for him over Senator Obama, McCain (R-Arizona) replied, “Sen. Obama, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Hawaii. So it’s not surprising that he would have an advantage in some of those states in the West.”
• Regarding the controversy over Reverend Wright, McCain said “The point I was making was not that Reverend Wright harbors any racial animosity. He doesn’t. But he is a typical black person who, uh, if he sees somebody in the government that he doesn’t know there’s a reaction that’s been been bred into our experiences that don’t go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way and that’s just the nature of race in our society.”
• In a speech on foreign relations, McCain promised to “work with the President of England on trade issues in the European States.”
• Regarding his efforts to work with Democrats in office, McCain noted that “I’ve worked with members of the Democratic party in 57 states. I haven’t worked with anyone in Alaska or Rhode Island yet.”
• Speaking to a group of Pearl Harbor survivors, McCain, who was born in 1936, noted his connection with that day of infamy, “There was something stirring across the country because of what happened at Pearl Harbor. So Roberta and John S. McCain got together and John McCain Jr. was born. So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Pearl Harbor. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home to Pearl Harbor.”

I have decided to keep track of the Obama Gaffe Machine in its ever-expanding work to test the mainstream media’s limits of denial. It has turned out to be a bit more ambitious than I first thought, so it is not yet done. Given the frenzy today, I thought it appropriate to launch a bit early.

Please feel free to comment or suggest new gaffes on the permanent Obama Gaffe page.

I find it mildly amusing that Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean have all come out in the past two days promising to bring an end to the Democratic presidential campaign next week. While it is true that the party “leaders” can apply pressure to the unaligned super delegates, they cannot apply pressure to Hillary herself. What is needed to end this race is a concession speech from the runner-up. Does anyone really think that is forthcoming?

Let’s look at the carrots and sticks that the Democrats have over Hillary Clinton. First, the sticks:

• Campaign Debt. Hillary has amassed about $11 million dollars worth of campaign debt that, under McCain-Feingold, she must repay before the nominee is selected at the convention. $11 million is a lot of money, even to the Clintons, but most of it is owed to small suppliers. Has anyone ever accused the Clintons of looking out for the little guy?
• Obama’s Inevitability. The argument goes: once enough super delegates come to Obama, Hillary will have no choice but to concede to Obama. This argument is so utterly unhinged from the past 4 months, it borders on parody. Hillary Clinton has been mathematically eliminated since just after Super Tuesday. No one reasonably expected Hillary to be able to pull this out without a tremendous Yankees-lose-four-straight-to Boston style collapse by Obama. Once she lost those 10 straight primaries, the end was inevitable. Nothing has changed, and it won’t.
• Hillary’s Future In the Party. To think that Reid, Pelosi or Dean could threaten the Clintons with any plausible political damage is laughable. Half the time, Reid and Pelosi can’t even get their own colleagues to get behind legislation they themselves are backing. And trust me, Hillary Clinton covets this nomination far more than some farm subsidy.

And now the carrots. Ask yourself, what is it that Hillary Clinton is asking for:

• Florida and Michigan. If you think this is anything but a cynical ploy, you’re doing it wrong. Hillary does not care one iota about the voters or delegates of Florida and Michigan. How do I know? Before it mattered, her delegates to the DNC voted unanimously to strip both states of their delegates. The only reason Hillary cares about these delegates is that it gives her a reason to take the fight to the convention.
• The Vice Presidency. As I have mentioned before, Hillary does not want Obama to win. She wants him to fail miserably so that she and Bill can say “We told you so,” in 2012. If that is her strategy, she wants to stay off the ticket to avoid blame, while paying lip service to a united party. She will campaign for Obama, she may even hedge her bets by requesting a Supreme Court spot, a cabinet role or a choice ambassadorship, but she will not join the ticket.
• A speaking role at the convention. Try and deny her this. This is not even negotiable for Hillary. She will speak at the convention, whether Pelosi, Reid and Dean like it or not. With almost exactly half of the delegates on the floor being Hillary supporters, can you imagine the pandemonium if she is denied a prominent role? Moreover, the media, even with it’s pro-Obama drunken stupor, would have to cover Hillary’s competing press conference(s) and other distractions.

In my opinion, there is just no leverage to force Hillary out of the race. Hillary truly believes that Obama will be exposed before November as the Chicago political operative he is (she would know), and she has faith that McCain will not run for two terms. No matter the numbers, no matter the odds, Hillary will drag this out to the convention. She will make a big speech, a thinly veiled warning to those who vote for Obama. She will force a vote (maybe even several platform votes to embarrass Obama). She will set the stage for four years hence, when her new campaign theme will be “I told you so.”

I had a uncle who was one of the, um, who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz, and liberate the concentration camps. And the story in our family was, is that, when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn’t leave the house for six months. Now, obviously, something had really affected him deeply. But at that time, there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain.

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, Las Cruces, New Mexico, May 26, 2008 (Memorial Day).

For those without access to the “right” wing of the internet, I will let you in on an open secret, U.S. troops never entered Auschwitz. The concentration camp at Auschwitz (Poland) was the largest in the German-controlled territories. Being east of Berlin (the furthest advance of U.S. and allied troops), it was liberated by the Soviet Union’s Red Army. Of course, Obama’s recent gaffes on geography may be signs he has “lost his bearings” completely, and he may have forgotten that Poland is east of Germany, just as he forgot that Kentucky borders Illinois. (Obama is apparently channeling Haley Joel Osmet in seeing dead people, so perhaps he’s not fit for the rigors of such a long campaign.)

It is true that the United States Army did, however, liberate several Nazi concentration camps, and I am sure that the horror of uncovering these camps in April of 1945 was overwhelming and lasting. It’s still early days in the latest Obama gaffe/whopper, but time will (hopefully) tell as to whether Obama was (a) merely misstating a (presumably true) family legend (certainly a mere gaffe, confusing Auschwitz with Dachau or another camp); (b) unknowingly repeating a false family legend or (c) making this up out of whole cloth (as he did his “claim on Selma“).

The first two are not so troublesome, as many of us take as gospel that which our grandparents told us (even if they are typical, white racists). For example, my grandmother (not a racist) told me that my late grandfather liberated the town in Italy where she was born. It’s a heart warming story, and I may repeat it in public one day. There’s no reason to issue a FOIA request for Grandpa Al’s records, but then again, I’m not claiming he liberated Auschwitz.

There are some troubling side stories here. There are questions as to whether Obama even has an uncle on that side. In addition, the fact that he would mention his grandfather’s tenuous connection (again to the wrong Nazi camps) in a 2002 speech and this (apparently long lost) uncle’s direct connection in 2008 also undermines the credibility of the uncle’s story. And finally, much like outing grandma as a racist, where is the compassion for this uncle’s suffering? If you had lived through the Great Depression, seen your country attacked by Japan, marched across Europe and Africa, watching your best friends die in combat, only to discover the truly disgusting depths of the human capacity for evil, would you want your slick nephew airing your dirty laundry, bragging about the most trying times of your long life to score political points?

In any case, I am sure that, if and when the media picks up on this gaffe/lie, we will be told that this is a “distraction” meant to keep us from “focusing on the real issues.”

On a less personal scale, of all things not to be taken lightly, the Holocaust should be at the top of anyone’s list. Auschwitz is a name that will live in the annals of evil for as long as humans walk the planet. If you’re going to raise the issue, if you’re going to connect yourself with those who, when earth’s foundation fled, took up arms against evil on Earth, you really need to get your story straight. Those who fought Germany and Japan, those who endured the Bataan Death March, the landings at Normandy, the shivering cold of Bastogne, they all deserve our loyalty and respect. To offhandedly make a claim on their legacy to make political hay is despicable. To fabricate such a claim is neigh treason to their memory.

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama is fond of calling John McCain’s candidacy the “third term of George Bush.” John McCain lacks the flair necessary, but he would be far more justified in calling Barack Obama’s candidacy the second term of the Jimmy Carter failure. I would love to see a side-by-side comparison of Jimmy Carter’s and Barack Obama’s idiotic policies, but I just don’t have the time or emotional capacity to re-live the horrors of the 1970’s. Without doubt, however, the most obvious similarity between the two is their naked willingness to meet with dictators, fascists and terrorists.

Although the Obama campaign is now retreating from the dangerously naive policy set forth by Obama himself, the fact remains that Obama is open to meeting with Iran, without precondition. Preconditions, of course, are those “barriers to diplomacy,” such as “Before we meet with you, you have to stop killing U.S. soldiers and innocent civilians in Iraq,” or “Stop building your nuclear plants, or we won’t meet with you.” Obama now says that how would, of course, have “preparations” before meeting with a man who has called our ally a “rotting corpse” and promised its annihilation.

The term “preparation” is a wonderfully naive term. It makes it sound as if Obama has such a childish view of the world that he thinks McCain is criticizing him for not planning an itinerary. “Of course we’re going to have preparations. We’ve booked the flight, we have a suite of hotel rooms, and I even brought a pen and a notepad, so I can take dictation copious notes from my dear friend Mahmoud.”

In a speech on Sunday, however, Obama betrayed the depth of his naiveté.

(You should watch the video, as Obama’s “come on” demeanor speaks volumes of his attitude). Three things jumped out of his speech:

1. Negotiations brought down the Berlin wall. This is a fundamental misstatement of history. President Reagan’s unflinching anti-Communism, aggressive expansion of our military capabilities and his refusal to talk with Soviet hardliners like Chernenko lead to the internal and external reforms. And, not to be too dramatic, but Reagan’s demand to Gorbachev that he “tear down this wall”, was not made over an ornate conference table in a quiet Swiss hotel. It was made in front of the damn wall to a cheering crowd of Germans.
2. “Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union did.” This is absurd. During the Cold War, the USSR could annihilate the United States and its allies, and vice versa. This stalemate, known as mutually assured destruction, only works with rational people. The Soviets were horribly brutal, but they were not about to cause the extinction of mankind to prove a point. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, has never been successfully accused of being a rational person. While it is true that the Iranian military poses no serious threat to the United States military, the Enola Gay, similarly posed little or no threat to the Hiroshima police force. It was the nuclear device it carried that did all that damage. Obama’s idiotic assertion that these “tiny” countries “don’t pose a serious threat to us” begs the question, how many Israeli, European or U.S. cities would have to be sacrificed in nuclear holocausts before Obama realized that one man with a bomb is a serious threat to us?
3. “Iran spends 1/100th of what we spend on their military. If they ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they would’nt stand a chance.”I have to admit, this took me all of three minutes to debunk, most of which was spent looking for my calculator. According to publicly available data on the CIA website, Iran’s military expenditure in 2008 will be (2.5% of GDP) $21.3 billion (not sure if this includes their “peaceful nuclear program”). The U.S. military expenditure in 2008 (including fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and deployments on every continent) will be (4.05% of GDP) $561.3 billion. No matter how you cut it, Iran spends way more than 1/100th of what America spends on their military. In real dollars, Iran spends 1/25th of what the U.S. does on it’s military (four times what Obama implies). In terms of percentage of GDP, Iran spends more than half of what the U.S. spends. Per capita, Iran spends 1/6th what the United States spends. Anyway you look at the numbers 1/100th isn’t even close.

Obama has proven himself, again and again, to be naive on foreign policy (even suggesting we invade an ally and nuclear power, Pakistan). Although he seems to be backing off of his ridiculous policy now, who will be the voice of reason when, God forbid, President Obama’s ridiculous and dangerous ideas are not reigned in by an opposing nominee?

In October, 1974, Willie Horton and two other upstanding community leaders in Lawrence, Mass, robbed a 17-year old gas station attendant, stabbed the boy 19 times, and left him to bleed to death in a trash can. Horton was convicted of murder by a jury of his “peers” and sentenced to life in prison.

After being in prison for a little over 10 years, the governor of Massachusetts, believing that even prisoners deserve a vacation, allowed Mr. Horton out on a weekend furlough. Mr. Horton, never the one to let bleeding heart good deeds go unpunished, neglected to return from said furlough. He remained at large for almost a year until, in April, 1987, he robbed a couple in Maryland, stabbing (old habits die hard), pistol whipping, binding and gagging the man so that he could, not once, but twice, rape the woman in front of her boyfriend. In sentencing Horton for his crimes in Maryland, the judge refused to return Horton to Massachusetts saying, “I’m not prepared to take the chance that Mr. Horton might again be furloughed or otherwise released,” by the liberal Mecca on the Bay.

All of this may have been a sad (pathetic, perhaps) footnote in the anals of liberal idiocy, except for the fact that the governor who furloughed Willie Horton, and allowed him to rape and brutalize the population at large, was Michael Dukakis, and Michael Dukakis ran for President in 1988.

During the Democratic primaries (sorry to let the cat out of the bag, but, yes, it was a democrat who came up with the idea of giving people with lifetime prison sentences a “break”), one of Dukakis’s opponents (none other than Al Gore) raised the issue during a debate, without naming Willie Horton. Notwithstanding the soft-on-crime liability (and the fact that Senator Gore had just recently invented the internet), the Democrats nominated Mr. Dukakis as their candidate for president against then Vice President George H. W. Bush.

Here is where the saga takes a turn that could only be explained by a firm understanding of race and the media in America. A Republican group ran an ad informing the public of Dukakis’s disgusting history with Mr. Horton. The ad, which named Horton, included a photo of him. He’s Black. This, of course, means that Republicans are racists.

Wait, what? Republicans didn’t hand pick Willie Horton. Out of all the furloughed prisoners, his story was the worst. Republicans didn’t make him Black. Republicans didn’t encourage Dukakis to only release violent Black criminals. Republicans had absolutely nothing to do with (i) Willie Horton being Black; (ii) Willie Horton killing, raping and brutalizing three people or (iii) Willie Horton being released from prison. This entire episode was hand crafted by Mike Dukakis, not some Republican attack machine. All that the Republican ad did was to tell the story. Is that racist?

So why, then, do Republicans not cry foul when some dim witted political operative (by the way Susan, “escapade” is not the proper term when describing the violent rape of a woman and the beating and stabbing of her boyfriend) blames the Republicans for “negative” ads like “Willie Horton?”

What, exactly, is racist about showing the face of Willie Horton, or even mentioning him by name? Visual aids are key to advertising (whether they are political or otherwise). Are Republicans required to forgo visual aids because Willie Horton is Black? What’s more, isn’t it more racist to assume that showing the photo is racist? The liberal’s objection is that, by showing Willie Horton, the ad plays on America’s fear of Black men. Come again? Who says America is afraid of all Black men? I’m not. I am, however, wary of anyone who has stabbed a 17-year old 19 times, pistol-whipped, stabbed, bound and gagged another man while he rapes (twice) that man’s girlfriend. I don’t care if he’s Black, White, red, orange, blue or green, I give the fucker a wide berth.

The point here is that Democrats are able, because Republicans are scared of being called racists (or greedy, or polluters, etc.), to reframe the issue from one of cause and effect of bad policies to one of politics-as-usual, Republican-attack-machine, negative campaigning. We can no longer allow them to do this. We have to take back the dialogue from the scare-mongers and race-baiters. Willie Horton was a clean ad on the failed liberal policies of Mike Dukakis.

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Ranged) is fond of quoting her own personal bible to underscore her belief in high gas prices, government mandated largesse and greener and greener policies, no matter the cost. In particular, Pelosi is fond of saying, “The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, ‘To minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.’” The problem, of course, is that this verse appears nowhere in any known translation of the Holy Bible.

Speaker Pelosi has acknowledged that the verse is not easily found, as it appears only in her own apocryphal copy of the Bible, given to her personally by God (here taking multiple Earthly forms, including AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Internet pioneer Al Gore). Among the lost Pelosi passages of the Holy Bible are:

• “Woe betide the man who, having money, giveth not to thine most progressive party.”
• The Greenest Commandment: “And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is Global Warming. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy wallet, and with all thy tax revenue, and with all thy Hollywood special effects: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt tax thy neighbor unlike thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”
• “And on the recess of the 10th Day, God cast out the evil spirits of the kingdom of Beegoil, the Chloroflorenes, the Carbonites, the Antiozonites and the Essyouveans. And God saw that the world contained no commerce, and it was good.”
• “Blessed are the elected officials, for thine is the kingdom of taxation and spendation.”
• “And He sayeth unto the congregation of nonbelievers, ‘I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you and drinketh your Royal Crown and eateth thine waffles?’”
• “And God said unto Moses, ‘Let not my people’s carbonite footprint exceed that of thine cattle. For to do so would cause me to warmeth the Earth.”

If this is not the height of government stupidity, I fear what that might look like. The city of Washington D.C. (which, you’ll recall, is federal property overseen by the United States Congress) bought 3 electric streetcars three years ago for a total price of $10,000,000. Why? no on really knows, as the city does not have the overhead power lines needed to run the cars, nor does it have a plan to build them. So the streetcars remain in a factory in the Czech Republic, presumably where the person who bribed the incompetent idiot in D.C. works.

Your tax dollars at work.

I have to confess, I have been enjoying, with guiltless pleasure, the debacle Wednesday’s debate was, and the accompanying fracas it has created on the internet and in the media.

On Obama’s performance, two things lept out at me, first how he turns into a whining little mess when the media shows the slightest bit of skepticism towards him and second his ridiculous response to the Ayers question.

The first issue, which really speaks to the broader problem of denial for the Democrats, was evident in Obama’s responses and his demeanor. He was asked about the lapel pin, Reverend Wright, terrorist cum professor William Ayers and his demeaning and elitist comments in San Francisco. Each time, he deflected these questions as either unfair or “distractions.” This is the corollary to his San Francisco comments: “You people aren’t smart enough to focus on the real issues!” It would seem that anything on which Obama and the vast majority of Americans disagree are irrelevant distractions, security blankets, or unfair partisan attacks.

For example, most Americans (like it or not, Mr. Obama) believe in their religion. I assert that a majority of Americans believe that abortion is abhorrent and should be made illegal in most cases. (Polls on this point are debateable, but if Democrats believe that I am wrong, stop hiding in court, and let’s decide the issue by majority vote in Congress). Many Americans believe the Second Amendment protects their right to keep and bear arms and are actually afraid of what America will become if we, like the UK and France, lose that right.

Simply because your ivory encrusted sheepskins from Columbia and Harvard tell you such claims are unfounded does not make these issues irrelevant. We live under a system of laws, not one ordered by fiat from know it alls who don’t want to talk about religion, abortion, marriage, gun ownership or other topics on which they hold an unpopular stance.

Put another way, your “irrelevant distraction” is my “core value.” Your “core values” (which, though it’s hard to tell, seem to be government run health care, withdrawal from Iraq, and government bailout of people who made a bad decision on real estate) are my “irrelevant distractions.” I don’t want to live with government health care any more than I want live in government housing. If we wanted out of Iraq, we would have elected the Junior Snob from Massachusetts in 2004. If I wanted to pay for someone else’s mistakes, I would be a Democrat. People vote on what matters to them. Saying Republicans “scared voters” into voting against their interest is not an argument, it’s denial.

On William “I wish I had done more to kill innocent civilians” Ayers, Obama’s response would be funny if he wasn’t running for president. Ayers was part of the Weather Underground and, not only has he never renounced violence against the government (and innocent people), he is proud of his “work” and, on 9/11/2001 of all days, the New York Times ran a puff piece pitching his memoirs. He is scum and in a just world, someone would visit the violence and terror on him that he visited on others. He is, however, a force in Chicago politics and helped launch Obama’s political career in 1995. He and Obama have served on boards together, their relationship is far more substantial than Obama indicated.

Here is George Stephanopoulos’s question and Obama’s response:

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator, if you get the nomination, you’ll have to — (applause) — (inaudible).

I want to give Senator Clinton a chance to respond, but first a follow-up on this issue, the general theme of patriotism in your relationships. A gentleman named William Ayers, he was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol and other buildings. He’s never apologized for that. And in fact, on 9/11 he was quoted in The New York Times saying, “I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough.”

An early organizing meeting for your state senate campaign was held at his house, and your campaign has said you are friendly. Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won’t be a problem?

SEN. OBAMA: George, but this is an example of what I’m talking about.

This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.

And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.

The fact is, is that I’m also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who during his campaign once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions.

Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn’s statements? Because I certainly don’t agree with those either.

So this kind of game, in which anybody who I know, regardless of how flimsy the relationship is, is somehow — somehow their ideas could be attributed to me — I think the American people are smarter than that. They’re not going to suggest somehow that that is reflective of my views, because it obviously isn’t.

First, the fact that Ayers’s conduct occurred when Obama was 8 is irrelevant. The Unibomber was killing people when I was 8, does that mean it’s okay for me to have him launch my political career? Can I serve on a board with him? Ayers is only a professor because he’s a left-wing nutjob who tried to kill innocent people in the 70’s. Is this another pathetic version of the “I wasn’t in church that day” defense?

Second, Tom Coburn is an elected official who has, to my knowledge, never broken the law, nor advocated the overthrough of the government of the United States by force and violence. He advocated a change in the law that would allow the death penalty for people who violate that law, as changed. Comparing the two is absurd.

Third, he hasn’t given Obama his “official endorsement”? Talk about irrelevant. Louis Farrakhan gave Obama his official endorsement, should we interpret that to mean Obama exchanges ideas with him on a regular basis? (Speaking of which, you need not exchange ideas with someone if you know you share the same anti-American perspective). And what are we to make of the lack of an endorsement? Certainly Ayers, a Chicago political operative who launch Obama’s career, is in fact in favor of Obama’s candidacy. So why hasn’t Ayers “officially” endorsed Obama? The only reasonable explanation is that Obama has asked him not to. In other words, the two are close enough that Obama can ask him for such a favor.

Fourth, again with the “this is irrelevant because it makes me look bad.” This is not irrelevant. You have chosen to associate yourself with someone who tried to kill people. This is a statement of your character, your judgment and possibly your ideology. Either Obama agrees with Ayers on some level or Obama compromised his principles to cozy up to a terrorist for the sake of his political career. Which is it? Personally, I could not be in the same room with William Ayers for 5 minutes before security would be called. Obama gave a speech at Ayers’s home, with his terrorist wife and their friends. Obama moved into his neighborhood, knowing he lived there. Obama agreed to serve on a board of directors with this defective human.
EXPLAIN!

Unless you have been hiding in a cave in Pakistan over the last four days, you have heard the remarks Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said in a “closed” or “private” meeting with billionaires in San Francisco. An attendee who planned to visit Pennsylvania and volunteer for the Obama campaign asked Obama what to expect and how to convince people there to vote for hope and change.

Obama referred the person to his advisors who would provide him with talking points, and then the candidate engaged in a little bit too much of pop psychology. Explaining why voters in Pennsylvania were not joining in lock-step march with team Obama, Obama said:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

There are several problems with this analysis:

1. Legally: Obama needs to obtain a licenses from the estates of Karl Marx and Joseph Lenin. Calling working people ignorant for having religion is nothing new. The Soviet Union was founded on that principle. Guess where Obama wants to take us.
2. Logically: It assumes that people who do not vote for Obama are irrational. Of course people can be bitter about their condition (economic, political, environmental), but not voting for someone who claims to represent hope doesn’t mean you’re hopeless. It could, and in my case certainly does, mean that you think he’s full of crap and his plan for America will bankrupt America. This is a fundamental problem with Democrats that goes back to Adelaide Stevenson, who, when told he had convinced all thinking people to vote for him, he quipped, “That’s not good enough, I need a majority.” Funny line, but not exactly a pro-American stance. This is no different than the constant argument by Democrats that Republicans use scare tactics (i.e. remind voters that there are, in fact, people trying to kill us and leadership matters) or play to ignorant social conservatives (i.e. remind voters that abortion and gay marriage are differences between the parties) to win votes. This, of course, discounts the possibility that voters, in full control of their senses, vote Republican because they believe in the principles that the party represents, chiefly, limited government and lower taxes. This, in all honesty, is beyond the scope of the Democratic imagination. We’re all just bitter, delusional, bible thumping, gun totting, racist, anti-immigration boobs.
3. Honestly: Because these statements were made in a “closed, private” meeting (campaign speak for “You weren’t supposed to hear that”), and Obama was responding to a question (these were not prepared remarks vetted for political message) we can reasonably assume Obama was being honest and unguarded. In other words, whatever he says from here on out to clarify or rephrase, this is the closest to what he truly believes.
4. Politically: Tuzla hurt Hillary Clinton because it was a microcosm of what people despise about Hillary Clinton. She flat out lied about sniper fire. Sniper fire is not something you forget, but with no shame or remorse (except at being caught), she told a patently false, easily disprovable lie. What’s worse, she did so for no real gain. Does anyone think that landing in a war zone makes you Commander-in-Chief material? Maybe Sinbad should run for president. The point is, this was a crystallizing event for Democrats. It reminded them, without bringing up partisan scars, of the stained blue dress, Whitewater, travelgate, troopergate, and the hundreds of scandals and bullship the Clintons created in eight years in Washington. It was Hillary in a nutshell. Obama’s comments, similarly, crystallized the hidden fears nonbelievers have about Obama: he’s a dyed in the wool liberal. It removed his mask of “post-partisanship” and revealed (or, in deference to those not there yet, appeared to reveal) what he truly is: a Marxist, anti-American charlatan who thinks working men and women are suckers who are good for nothing if they don’t support the revolution.
5. Finally: As Rich Lowry points out, it finally resolved the paradox of the “uniter” who has never reached across the aisle for anything. It is clear that Obama intends to bring the mountain to the ignorant masses. Meaning, his idea of uniting us, is to pry our bibles, guns and racist sentiments from our mystified little paws and show us the true path to enlightenment: an ever expanding socialist government for all.